


Look With Century Eyes [We Will Stare Straight Ahead For The Rest Of Our Lives]

by StarkAstarte



Series: Stucky Stand-Alones [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Humor, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, New Year's Eve, Post-Winter Soldier, Romance, Some Humor, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited longing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:44:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1610522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkAstarte/pseuds/StarkAstarte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's bedroom eyes are filled with murder. He knows about The Hug. It's New Year's Eve, and Phil Coulson might not survive the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look With Century Eyes [We Will Stare Straight Ahead For The Rest Of Our Lives]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OwnThyself](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwnThyself/gifts).



It’s New Year’s Eve on the top floor of the recently rebuilt Stark Tower, and Tony has pulled out all the stops. Not like he knows what stops are, anyway. Every party he throws is like Christmastime at the end of the world: over the top, manic, extravagant. A nameless and overwhelming emotion underpinning the hilarity. Like the last night of all their lives. Because, you know. It always could be. Any second could be the last. Tony believes in the significance of moments like that. Parties like this are his way of formally saluting them before ecstatically flipping them the bird.

The festivities are in full swing when Agent Coulson wanders over to Pepper with a sweating tumbler full of melting ice and amber liquid in his hand. He looks as freshly-showered and well-groomed as he always does, even late at night after a long, hard mission. Even on Sunday morning after a soiree like this one. Only his tux is different from the norm, but not as much of a contrast as it would be on anyone else. Coulson was born dapper, Pepper thinks. She wishes she was half as comfortable as he looks, but her heels are _killing_ her.

“Hi, Phil,” Pepper says, smiling through the pain. She leans over to kiss his smooth cheek. His aftershave is pleasant, slightly lemony, a tiny bit minty. It makes her feel tranquil. Phil Coulson always makes her feel that way. Like he is the whole world’s best uncle, and he will take care of everything while everyone sleeps, dreamless in their beds, wearing footy-pajamas. “How’s your night?” she continues when he smiles tightly at her and takes a sloppy sip from his glass. “I haven’t seen you making the rounds. Is everything alright?”

His affable expression is troubled slightly by his folded-in eyebrows. He can never look completely humourless, not even when he’s furious or deeply, deeply concerned. Which is most of the time, really. Phil was also born concerned. He sighs, and nods subtly across to the other side of the room. “Man, that guy really hates me. Every time we’re in the same room, he gets out the Crazy Eyes.”

Pepper follows his gaze, pretending not to look. Her eyes come to rest on a spare, immaculately-tailored figure in a Westwood three-piece, his collar open at the neck to reveal a sinuous column of throat. No tie. Clothes worn as casually as sweats despite their costly provenance, making him look even more devastatingly stylish. The man wears clothes like a runway king. A rakish flop of dark hair frames the large eyes that look like murder when they don’t speak of bedrooms dimly lit, crumpled bed-sheets and guttural moans. They’re looking distinctly murdery now as he stares back at Phil Coulson.

Pepper bursts out laughing, laying an immaculately manicured hand on his shoulder. Her hair swings forward, covering her bare shoulder. Phil’s bemused expression is bordering on the annoyed. She leans closer. Her white teeth gleam like pearls, framed by lips warm and red as poppies. “Sergeant Barnes, he, ah. Heard about the hug, Phil.”

Coulson’s eyes cloud with confusion before widening. He darts a look at the other man standing across the room. The tall, broad-chested one stripped down to his shirtsleeves, tugging at his tie and suffering through the elegant cut of his waistcoat. The good man who drinks with the best of them but will end up the only one tragically unplastered at the turn of the clock. Coulson’s own eyes take a turn for the crazy. He swivels them frantically back to Pepper, who is still laughing at him. “But. That was just. One time. Sergeant Barnes wasn’t even—I was just so—” He throws up his unfettered hand. “I was glad. I was alive, against all odds, and Steve was just so. He was. My hero. I. Couldn’t help myself, Pepper. He was really nice about it. He didn’t mind a bit. He even hugged me back,” Coulson muses fondly, dealing the tall blond a distinctly soppy look, and then paling visibly when Barnes scowls, moving in front of Steve in a clearly defensive posture. “Cracked two of my ribs, but it was  _so_ worth it.”

Pepper smiles wider, shaking her head. “Well, I get it, Phil. I really do. We _all_ get it. But Bucky isn’t reasonable when it comes to Steve. I’m not sure how reasonable he ever is. He heard about the hug, and he’s not very impressed. And even if he _hadn’t_ heard, the way you look at Steve isn’t exactly stealthy. You should probably learn to be a little more subtle if you want to keep getting away with it.”

Phil deals her a pained expression. “That bad, is it?”

“Like puppy-love on steroids,” Pepper confirms, patting his cheek. “There’s a pool going around S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters on the odds of you trying to give Steve his New Year's kiss. Haven’t you been wondering why everyone has been following your every move all evening, whispering behind your back?”

Phil shakes his head. “I didn’t notice.”

Pepper nods over at Steve, who grins at her and waves. She smiles and waggles her fingers. “And that six-foot-four-walking-wet-dream, my friend, is why.”

Phil laughs, pleasantly shocked by her vulgarity. Puts it down to the champagne talking. His eyes slide back to Steve Rogers, who’s torn off his restrictive bowtie and given it to Barnes, who pockets it like it’s a holy relic. Phil can relate. He wonders if he can get close enough to the former Soviet-assassin to pick his pocket. On the possible pain of his own death, maybe. But it, like vertebrochondral damage, would be worth it. Probably. Steve tears his top button open, revealing the unsnappable neck of a man made into a god. His collar is damp, peeling away from his skin like a wilted flower. It’s December, and the Cap has Coulson dreaming of Tahiti. Of every magical place he has ever known.

The music rises and plows into them, incessantly rhythmic, and people start dancing. A frenetic beat made for swiveling hips and gyrating pelvises. Pepper gives Coulson a final squeeze, and floats off trailing her shimmering satin sheath to find Tony, who is an indefatigable dancer. Phil stands alone as everyone pairs off, or finds their own bubble of space on the floating floorboards. It’s a sight the rabid fandom would give their internal organs to witness: the Avengers getting down with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on a New Year’s Eve dance-floor, ten minutes to midnight.

Steve stands rigid at the epicentre, his friends and colleagues breaking around him like a human whirlpool. Sergeant Barnes is pressed up against him, his coat torn off and tossed away, no doubt being trampled underfoot, yet another hazard he has created for everyone around him. His metal forearm gleams dull and dangerous in the flickering strobe-light, the cuffs of his shirt peeled back to reveal the segments of steel that provide such a dissonant contrast to the flex of flesh and sinew that make up the right arm. The one attached to the hand that has Steve Rogers gripped by the collar, fingers laced through the hair at the nape of his neck. Familiar and possessive in a way that makes Coulson ache. Barnes pulls Steve down to whisper in his ear. Steve blushes, laughing, his cheek pressed against the hinge of the ex-Winter Soldier’s jaw.

Barnes pulls him closer, wrapping his metallic fingers firmly around one of the sinfully-shaped cheeks of Steve’s ass. It’s vulgar, provocative—and sexy as hell. Coulson’s mouth has never been so dry. He can’t even swallow. Steve jerks back in surprise, reddening, but he melts slowly into the smaller man’s arms, succumbing to whatever is being whispered into the blameless shell of his ear. A wicked smile Coulson has never seen before blooms across his face. It’s a distinctly _Barnesian_ grin, and it looks both entirely wrong and completely right. He can’t see Barnes’ face, but he can imagine it. Those murder eyes turning bedroomy. Softening into shadows of need. A need Coulson understands very well.

Barnes slides his right hand down the glorious curvature of Steve’s back until he is gripping the captain’s hips. He kneads them, his thumbs urging them to _move_. To follow his partner’s lead. Steve moves, awkwardly at first. He’s no dancer. Graceful, but physically reserved when it comes to less-than-tactical movement. But his hips know what they’re made for. And what they’re made for seems to be Bucky Barnes. To move with him, instinctually. Back-to-back in battle, chest-to-chest on the dance-floor—it’s all the same thing, really. Phil can see that, now. They bring their battlefield between them wherever they go. And they bring their love for each other to war, like a secret weapon. Not so secret, as it turns out. Not anymore.

The two men gyrate together, Barnes slinking around Steve to push his buttocks into the bigger man’s groin, head thrown back, mouth pressed into the side of his neck. Steve nuzzles his face, lips tracing temple, incongruously patrician nose burying itself in Barnes’ wild shock of hair. Their hands twine together. The only hands on earth strong enough to hold Steve Rogers grip him like letting go is dying. They move together in a way that lets anyone know who’s looking that they belong to each other. That this is what they are for. No one’s looking at them more than passingly. Only Coulson watches, paralyzed, sweaty drink forgotten in his hand.

“Did you get your invitation yet?” Sam Wilson’s voice is warm, slightly sloshy. He bumps his shoulder into Coulson’s, a friendly point of contact that jars Phil into the present. The music comes roaring back in. He hadn’t realized he’d been watching the scene unfold before him like a silent movie, only imagining until now the pelvic beat that drives the pair of bodies he can’t look away from.

“Invitation?” he says, his voice hoarse. He tosses back the remainder of watered-down single malt in his glass, and grimaces. Ice is a shameful offence against decent whiskey, and this stuff's worth more by the ounce than gold.

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles. “Where have you been, under a rock?”

Coulson tears his gaze away to look at the other man. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sam.”

Sam’s face is shining, his warm brown eyes twinkling as he shakes his head, exasperated. “To the _wedding_ , Agent Coulson. It’s in June. They’re very traditional that way. Actually believe June’s good luck for weddings.”

“Who?” Coulson says stupidly, a ribbon of dread uncoiling in his stomach.

“So you _didn’t_ hear. It’s not just the whiskey making you facetious as all hell?”

Coulson shakes his head slowly.

“Steve _proposed_ , man. Down on one knee, the speech, the poetry, fireworks if Tony had anything to do with it. Everything. Him and Bucky are getting _hitched_. Can you believe it?”

Phil shakes his head. “No. I can’t. Really?”

Sam smiles, watching his friends and former roommates fondly. “Yeah, I know, it seems sudden, but not like I didn’t see it coming, once I knew Bucky was gonna be okay. Steve brought him back from the dead, and now they’re gonna live out their lives together, like they should’ve the first time around. It’s as romantic as hell, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Phil says, smiling convulsively. “Yeah, it sure is.”

Sam claps him on the back. “Well, I got to find my date. Midnight’s coming. Don’t stand here all on your own, Phil. Find some lips and kiss ’em like tomorrow’s never coming.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

But he doesn’t. There are no lips here for him tonight. He thinks fleetingly of the cellist, the tensile strength of her strong fingers cupping his jaw. The smell of apple-blossoms in the swirls of her hair. He watches his friends, swaying with their partners as the music slows down. Steve and Barnes are still in the eye of the human storm, facing each other again, Barnes’ arms linked around Steve’s neck. The captain’s hands stroke the damp fabric at the small of the sergeant’s back in lazy, tender circles. They look as if they are about to fall into each other’s eyes, not speaking with their mouths because there is no need. There has never been any need. Long before Coulson was even born, it was just these two against the world. And now they are in it again, though they will never really be a part of it. They occupy their own private version of history, of time, of place. _I don’t know where I end and you begin_ , their eyes say to each other— _and I never want to._ Phil was a fool not to see it. He sees it so clearly now, he can’t see anything else. These two are husbands already.

The countdown begins, Tony masterminding the ritual of champagne, singing, and kisses like he oversees everything, the evening perfectly orchestrated to a level of cinematic spontaneity usually reserved for the denouement of romantic movies. Confetti falls, shimmering, into the hair and upturned faces of the two broken men who have made each other whole. Champagne flows like water or like blood pumping through hearts falling back into love.

Everyone is kissed. Except Phil. He watches Steve and Barnes. Steve and _Bucky_. They kiss like it’s the end of all things. Like it’s the beginning. Like it will never end badly. And Phil hopes, suddenly, a piercing realization like a pin to the heart, that it won’t. That they will have this, the pair of them. Have what they’ve earned a thousand times over. Phil smiles as Bucky’s eyes find him and narrow into medieval murder-holes, clutching Steve possessively against him. Phil nods at him, lifting his empty glass. Barnes stares. And then smiles, slowly. Presses a kiss against Steve’s neck. Murder drains from his eyes, leaving his them soft and tired and wearier than anything Coulson has ever seen. He salutes the oldest young men in the world like their love will save him. Save them all. Just like it always has.


End file.
